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“ The Social Vindication of the Highlands”:


Climate Change and Justice in Southern Peru

Article · November 2016

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lasaforum fall 2016 : volume xlvii : issue 4

E N V I RON M E N TA L J U S T IC E A N D C L I M AT E C H A NGE I N L AT I N A M E R IC A

“The Social Vindication of the Highlands”:


Climate Change and Justice in Southern Peru
by ASTRID B. STENSRUD | University of Oslo | a.b.stensrud@sai.uio.no

We send water and send water, and the and drought. The greatest concern is the the highlands perceive this as structural
[people on the] coast do not even worry ever-decreasing water supply due to melting injustice (see also Stensrud 2016).
whether the water is drying up in these glaciers, drying springs, and irregular
parts, whether there are no trees or whether rainfall. The impact of climate change is My argument in this article is threefold.
there are filtrations, or whether a mining unevenly distributed, both geographically First of all, I suggest that climate justice
company comes in. [. . .] The poorest and socially, and in the Andes, it adds to is not only about relations between the
areas of the Peruvian Andes are those that existing challenges of living in poverty and global North and the South, but that a
provide water to the coast. in a harsh mountain environment. While range of actors in developing countries–
peasant farmers suffer from drought in the for example extractive industries like
(Mayor of Caylloma province, interview, headwaters at more than four thousand agribusiness and mining companies
October 12, 2011) meters of altitude, water is dammed in (Bebbington 2015; Li 2015)–should be
the Condoroma Reservoir and directed accounted for in questions of justice across
into the Majes Canal and down to the local, regional, and global scales. Second,
Earlier the seasons were respected [by the irrigation project in the flat, arid lands of I argue that environmental inequality and
rain], but the climate has changed and Majes. Some water is also transferred to injustice result from multiple structural
it affects the agriculture. The earth has the Quilca-Chili watershed, which provides practices: people living in the climate-
transformed too much. water to Arequipa City, hydropower sensitive areas in the Peruvian highlands
stations, and the Cerro Verde copper mine. are simultaneously suffering from poverty,
(Farmer and market vendor in Chivay, This unequal distribution of water shows discrimination, and the consequences of
interview, November 13, 2013) how the Peruvian state gives priority to climate change, and measures of adaptation
large-scale export-oriented agriculture, inspired by neoliberal ideas about
mining, and energy production over small- payments for user rights to water are also
If we don’t get the project through, we will scale farming. imposed on them. Third, I suggest that new
make a water war. forms of political claims that are based on
Water management has become politically ideas of ownership, reciprocity, distributive
(Activist from Callalli, interview, February significant during the past decade because justice, and non-anthropocentric natures
2, 2014) of climate change, urban population are emerging and should be included in
growth, the mining boom, and the discussions about environmental and
increasing numbers of socioenvironmental climate justice.2
Along with the rest of the global South, conflicts related to water. As a response,
most Peruvians contribute very little of the the National Water Authority in Peru is
world’s carbon dioxide emissions: Peru introducing stricter control with permit Climate Change and Economic
was number 133 in the Carbon Dioxide systems. In 2009, the government passed Development in Colca and Majes
Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)’s a new law on water resources inspired by
2011 ranking of the world’s countries per the global paradigm of integrated water “The world is upside-down,” Miriam said
capita fossil fuel CO2 emission rates.1 resources management, which emphasizes when she was telling me about how the
Yet global warming produces changes in that water has economic value. In addition seasons had changed: this year it rained
temperature, precipitation, seasonality, to tariffs for irrigation water, farmers have in the dry season, and the frost continued
glacier retreat, and water supply. These to register and pay for the right to use a into what was supposed to be the rainy
changes have adverse effects on the certain amount of water measured by litres season. It was November 2013 and all the
livelihood of small-scale farmers in the per second (Paerregaard, Stensrud, and farmers in Colca Valley were waiting for
Colca Valley and especially in the highlands Anderson 2016). Seeing that the authorities the rain. Like most of these farmers, she
of Caylloma Province in the Arequipa prioritize the economic value of water, and and her husband, Pedro, perceive the effects
region of southern Peru. The farmers that this water is transferred down to the of climate change in terms of seasonal
perceive the effects of global climate change urban and industrialized coastal lowlands instability, belated rains, longer drought
as the loss of stability—changes in the while the highlands continue with poverty periods, melting glaciers, decreasing
known seasonal cycle of rain, frost, heat, and environmental disasters, people in water supply, sudden frosts that come

26
at unexpected times, and more extreme Caylloma Province have declared states 2014. In January 2016, an Emergency
shifts in temperature: “the sun seems to of emergency several times since 2011, Coordination Committee was established
be closer to the earth.” Pedro complained after large quantities of crops have been in Majes because of the drought-related
that they must irrigate more often because ruined and thousands of animals killed risks, and the discharge from Condoroma
the heat makes the earth dryer than usual. by extreme weather events. In April 2014 was reduced from 9.5 cubic meters per
In 2011, Victor from Callalli told me that a group of mayors from the highland second to 6 cubic meters per second from
the glaciers and snowfields that could be districts travelled to the capital, Lima, to February. The farmers were encouraged to
seen on the mountaintops ten years earlier present their complaints and demands to use the water more efficiently, but they also
had disappeared: “When there used to be the government: financial compensation, needed to reduce their areas of cultivation.
snow, there were water cushions [colchones insurance for camelids, and agrarian
de agua] where each mountain deposited insurance. However, they were bought off Still, in the upcoming second phase of
water. So the springs were maintained all with Band-Aid measures like medicines the irrigation project Majes-Siguas II, the
year. Today there are no snowfields, and for the alpacas in the highlands and two private Consortium Angostura Siguas,
thus there are no water cushions deposited kilos of seeds to each farmer in the valley. made up of Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios
under the mountains.” Responses like these only exacerbate S.A. (Spain) and Cosapi S.A. (Peru), has
a pervasive yet ambivalent feeling of been awarded the concession to build the
It is getting increasingly harder to earn abandonment, which is a common idiom Angostura Dam, which will have a capacity
a living as farmers because “it is not by which relations between Andean of 1,140 million cubic meters (MMC) at
profitable” due to climatic uncertainties communities and the Peruvian state are 4,220 meters of altitude. The amount of
and insecure product prices. Small-scale described (Rasmussen 2015). Many water running through the Majes Canal
agriculture is still the main economic families see no other choice than to will be doubled and enable the construction
activity in Colca Valley, but there has been move away, and many end up in Majes, of two hydropower stations, in addition to
a transition from subsistence farming to which is seen as a place of opportunities the irrigation of 38,500 hectares of land
market production of potatoes, quinoa, where everyone could get a piece of the in the arid pampa of Siguas, next to the
beans, barley, and maize. “We used to “progress” and “modernity” that the already irrigated pampa of Majes. This
cultivate to consume, but now everything government envisions for this place. land will be sold in units of two hundred,
is money,” Miriam said. Like many others, five hundred, and one thousand hectares,
Miriam and her husband had to find Starting in the 1970s, the Majes Irrigation which means that big agribusiness will
alternative income strategies in addition to was a state project for colonizing and dominate. The consortium will administer
farming. Miriam made embroidered clothes cultivating the desert lowlands. The goal the infrastructure for 20 years, and the
to sell at the market, and Pedro found odd was to create export-oriented agriculture small and middle-sized farmers fear
jobs for the municipality and others. and agro-industry that would generate increased water tariffs. “We call this
economic growth and development for privatization,” a farmer told me. No matter
Upriver in the headwaters above four the southern region of Peru. Farmers were how strongly the government argues that
thousand meters of altitude, the situation given the opportunity to buy land in family the water is still public property according
is even worse. The highland inhabitants units of five hectares at subsidized prices, to the law, the farmers know that the
are among the poorest in the region and they received technical and financial operator that administers the infrastructure
as they are struggling to make a living support from international agencies, like also controls the water flow.
on alpaca pastoralism in the extremely the European Economic Community,
climate-sensitive highland environment. to transform the desert into fertile land.
Glaciers have disappeared, springs and Today, Majes is bustling with economic The Value of Water: Struggling for
pastures are dry, the rain is more irregular, activity and the population has rapidly Compensation and Justice
and when it finally comes, it falls so hard grown. However, because of the frequent
that it erodes the soil. The incidents of absences of rain in the Colca headwaters The project was delayed for several years
strong frost periods and heavy snowfall in the past few years, the water levels because communities in Espinar, a highland
are more common than before and harder in the Condoroma Dam had sunk to province in the neighboring Cusco region,
to anticipate. The local authorities of 60 percent of its maximum capacity in contended that the Angostura Dam

27
lasaforum fall 2016 : volume xlvii : issue 4

would take water from the headwaters the contrary, we come to contribute; we that make money on water that is born
of Apurímac River and thus leave them want to invest here. in the highlands: the Cerro Verde copper
without water. Their struggle has recently mine, the electric company EGASA, and
inspired people in Callalli, the district (Victor, interview, February 2, 2014) agribusiness companies in the Majes
where the Condoroma Dam is located, to Irrigation Project. They base their claim
initiate a collective claim for land rights Victor and the rest of the group from on the principle of valuation of water as
in Majes. They claim this right because Callalli claim the right to own land, work, formulated in the water resources law, but
they have not received any benefits from and invest in Majes because the irrigation also in the principle of reciprocity that is
the dam, and they will no longer silently project exists thanks to the water from practiced in the Andes, as explained by the
accept that agribusiness companies make Callalli. This claim is based on a sense of mayor of the province in an interview in
profit on the water from their territory ownership toward the water emerging from 2011: “I give you water, so you should give
while they suffer from drought. A group their local springs. This water is seen as me something back. . . . They should pay
of three hundred families have organized being owned by the mountains and given us, and we will make schools and restore
and aim to obtain the legal property rights to them by the mountain lords (Apus). The agricultural terraces and build dams. But
to four hundred hectares of land and to world of the farmers and pastoralists in the idea is that we sow water with a large
get infrastructure and water to irrigate Caylloma is a relational world in which all percentage of that money. We will sow, for
and produce on this land. Their goal is human and other-than-human entities are example, native plants around the water
to grow fodder and other crops with the interdependent. Water belongs to the Apus sources. In other words, this is all work to
water that comes from their home district. and the territories of which the Apus are preserve and harvest the water.” With the
If their project is not accepted, they are guardians. money they will preserve the headwater
willing to start what they call “a water environment, which consists of a particular
war.” The leader of the group, Victor, These relations of ownership to water have kind of wetlands (bofedales) that serve
expressed a profound feeling of structural also in recent years been articulated in as pastures for alpacas. Projects of tree
injustice because of the uneven distribution political claims for financial compensation. planting and building microdams are
of climate vulnerability, economic The water resources law, which is partly called “sowing and harvesting of water.”
opportunities, and access to water, legitimized by climate change, stresses the The microdams replace the glaciers that
agricultural land and markets between the significance of water as resource and value, have disappeared; they collect water when
headwaters and the Majes Project: especially for economic development. the heavy rains come in short periods,
The law also aims to foster a new “water protecting the soil against erosion and
This is the social vindication of the culture,” embedded in ideas of modernity, enabling a more even distribution of water
highlands. The Majes Project I was efficiency, and productivity, and which is throughout the year (see also Stensrud
a project for integration of the high connected to the payment of licences to 2016).
part, the middle part, and the lower water use rights (Paerregaard, Stensrud,
part [of the basin]. The project has and Andersen 2016). The promotion of the The claim for compensation for water
broken this principle. . . . The high new “water culture” is part of the Water echoes the environmental justice
part has absolutely been abandoned Resources Management Modernization movements, in Latin America also called
from the project. . . . Therefore we as program that has been financed by the environmentalism of the poor (ecologismo
proprietors of the water, as owners of World Bank.3 Referring to the principle of de los pobres), which address conflicts
the water, owners of the earth, owners economic value, the mayor of Caylloma about unequal access to nature’s services
as arequipeños and as cayllominos– Province in the period 2011–2014 said and resources, connecting economic and
who we are because these lands belong that water is their wealth: “When the ecological distribution to political power
to Caylloma–we have taken this world gives value to the water, we can (Martínez Alier 1992). The struggle for
democratic and legal option in order to say that our water costs [money].” Hence, environmental justice in Peru is mainly
be able to take on this project with the district mayors and leaders of water user directed against multinational mining
regional government. . . . We have not committees in Caylloma Province have companies (Chacón 2003). When water
come to beg for charity from anyone; on started to organize in order to demand scarcity is caused by global warming,
financial compensation from companies however, there is no local industry that can

28
be held directly responsible. Instead, claims that would allow for disagreements on the References
for justice are addressed to the industries definition of nature itself, and accept nature
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2010 “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes:
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individual user rights and payments rather Duke University Press
than the complexities of local systems for Notes
water governance, poverty, and inequity.4 Martínez Alier, Joan
1
Peru had 0.49 metric tons of carbon per capita
This pattern is confirmed by dominant in 2011, according to the CDIAC: http://cdiac. 1992 De la economía ecológica al ecologismo
political arenas and media, where concerns ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2011.cap. popular. Barcelona: Icaria.
with efficiency and growth overshadow 2
The ethnographic data referred to in this Paerregaard, Karsten, Astrid B. Stensrud, and
debates on inequality and justice. An article was generated during two long-term Astrid O. Andersen
important question is whether making the fieldwork sessions (March–October 2011 and
peasant farmers pay for water is a solution November 2013–April 2014) in Chivay and 2016 “Water Citizenship: Negotiating Water
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watershed. Peruvian Andes”. Latin American Research
Review 51 (1): 198–217.
Local initiatives of adaptation, on the 3
World Bank, Peru, 2016: Water Resources
other hand, can be articulated with ideas Management Modernization, Implementation Rasmussen, Mattias B.
related to, or similar to, environmentalism Completion and Results Report (IBRD-
77010), http://documents.worldbank.org/ 2015 Andean Waterways: Resource Politics
of the poor and climate justice. When
curated/en/912691467955228834/pdf/ in Highland Peru. Seattle: University of
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Caylloma claim compensation for the disclosed-7-6-16.pdf (accessed September 2,
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4
In June 2014, Peru passed the Payments for
they address the unequal relations to the Reciprocity and Environmental Justice in the
Ecosystem Services Law (Ley de Mecanismos
powerful others in the watershed. These de Retribución Ecosistémico), and the Politics of Climate Change in Peru.” Latin
demands also emerge from relational regulations of the law were approved in July American Perspectives 43 (4): 56–72.
worlds where all entities are mutually 2016. It remains to be seen what the practical
connected, and can thus be seen as allied implications of the law will be in Caylloma
to a new kind of politics, identified as Province and the rest of Peru.
“pluriversal politics,” which is a politics

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